Monday, July 2, 2012

The summer show, Pt. 2: Legends of the dime boxes

Here's part two of the boundless dime box finds from Saturday's card show.

Last evening, I showcased the finds of the more recent and current players within the 500 different cards I nabbed from one special dime box. (Here's the post in case you missed it.)

But there were plenty of gems to go around, including a good chunk of cards featuring past greats, which is what this post will feature.

I even came across a few sets that I'd never seen before.

The above card of "Mr. October" is a good example, which comes from the 1986 Fleer Mini set.

I don't know about you, but I had no idea that Fleer manufactured minis in the '80s. These are particularly tiny cards, as I almost passed the Jackson up completely. (This should give you an idea as to the minute proportions of these.)

Fleer did a nice job with these minis.

I'll have to keep an eye out for some more.

I've always been partial to newspaper-themed issues over the years. It's one reason I'm a fan of Topps' "Year in Review" inserts from a few years back.

Best I can tell, this set focuses entirely on past Detroit Tigers greats. In all my years of collecting, I'd only come across one other issue from this set before yesterday. I found three in this dime box. (The other was of "Lu" Blue, one of the best "baseball names" ever.)

Plus, how often does a card of Germany Schaefer pop up anywhere, much less a dime box?

Usually, I'm not a fan of cards that contain a lot of blank space.

These are one of the few exceptions.

The only time I ever "split" a box is when my friend and I decided to go halfsies for a hobby box of 2005 Diamond Kings. We both liked the set, and I especially loved these inserts.

I don't exactly recall what we pulled, but I do remember trading for the Burleigh Grimes "HOF Heroes" insert, a card that is still prominently featured in my collection.

They don't show up too often in dime boxes, though.

That's why these were especially nice finds, especially one of "The Kid".

I wish I could find a big dime box filled with those Topps Retired Signature base cards.

They're way too under-represented in my collection, although I was glad to land a copy of Parker in those blinding Pirates uniforms from the '70s.

That Foster might well be the first Topps Tribute card I've ever found inside a dime box. I would've gladly paid a quarter or even fifty cents for that one, so a dime was an absolute steal in my eyes.

My grandma became a big fan of Garvey's when she lived in San Diego during the mid '80s. As a result, she's acquired a good deal of his memorabilia, some of which she's passed down to me over the years, including an autographed ball.

As a result, I make it a point to acquire any cheap Garvey cards I might come across. I uncovered a few at Saturday's show.

That's the second great Kirk Gibson card I've seen from '89 Upper Deck. The above issue is pretty good, but the other one I have is even better.

UD did a nice job capturing a great moment of baseball history.

While they might be awkward at times, I've recently decided to start collecting these multi-player cards that were issued in the early '80s.

There's a whole lot of star-power on both of these, although "Goose" Gossage looks out of place in those awful Padres uniforms.

Bill Madlock is a "Dime Box MVP".

He's one of those guys that was a great player, but not quite Hall of Fame material. As a result, guys like him pop up a lot in dime boxes.

I'll take anything I can find of his, though. I'd never seen those Topps "Flashback" inserts before Saturday.

Rod Carew is a frequent dime box visitor as well for some reason. You'd think cards of a .328 career hitter would meet a better fate.

I've "saved" countless amounts of Carew cards from dime boxes over the years.

I always seem to come home with a couple of these Coke Nolan Ryan cards after every show.

Although I don't know the exact backstory to the set, they're pretty common (yet neat) dime box finds.

Because I'm so used to seeing Ryan as the grizzled veteran during his later years with the Rangers, I sometimes forget he was once a starry-eyed rookie like every other big leaguer.

I have to believe that the card on the left does actually show a photo from Ryan's rookie season in 1966. Look at how young he is!

Plus, it could be considered a "pitcher at the plate" card since he's holding a bat.

This set just keeps getting better.

While the Cubs have had come great personalities in their long history, no two players have been more popular among the Cubbie faithful than Ernie Banks and Ron Santo.

As you might guess, these were a couple of my favorite finds from this dime box.

Speaking of the Cubs, here's a man who certainly left an imprint on the franchise.

Sadly, I don't remember hearing Harry Caray announce any Cubs games. He left us just before my vivid baseball memories begin.

I've heard enough of his voice in highlights and such to realize why he continues to be revered in the city of Chicago, though.

We'll probably never know just how accurate the "All-Time Negro League Home Runs Leaders" list on this card is.

I've read that Josh Gibson may have hit well over 800 homers in his lifetime.

This should show that no one is safe when it comes to dime boxes. You can literally find anyone inside of them.

Even Josh Gibson.

I've always thought Donruss Champions got a bad rap.

To this day, it remains the only product of which I've bought multiple boxes. (I bought two hobby boxes of the '05 issue.)

While their run was short-lived, the set did give us some pretty nice inserts, such as this one of the late Harmon Killebrew...

...and this one of Rod Carew.

The Twins should bring those powder-blue uniforms back for a couple games.

Maybe they could bring back Carew himself with the way they're playing.

It's a vintage sighting!

I'll get to all my vintage finds from the show in the fourth and final installment of the card show series, but here's a look at a few that fell out of the dime box.

Both of these guys are Hall of Famers. Yet real, actual bubble gum cards of theirs still found their way into a dime box.

But that wasn't all...

I'm sure these are lying in some dollar bins at the moment.

But I nabbed them for a tenth of that. Not to mention that these are actually in pretty good shape, something that isn't necessarily true of most dime box vintage I've seen.

My personal favorite gem from the "dime box legends" wasn't anything vintage, though. It's a card I've actually wanted for a while, but I haven't been lucky enough to find it anywhere.

Until now, that is.

Dave Kingman's 1977 season was one of the craziest on record.

That year, he played for the Mets, Padres, Angels, and Yankees. Four teams, all in one season.

As you might guess, this is a prime addition to my "short term stops" collection. I'm fairly certain that there aren't any cards of Kingman of a Padre or Angel, but I knew that there was a card of him floating around as a Yankee.

This one.

Kingman's tenure as a Yankee consisted of exactly eight games. (Although he did hit four homers during that time.)

I've never specifically looked for most of my dime finds. Much of the time, I just come across a card of one of the many players I collect, or perhaps just a "neat" card that I have to have.

Sometimes, as with this one, I find a card I've wanted for a long, long time.

4 comments:

It's cool that you have a Don Baylor collection now. We should be able to help each other out with that one because I collect him since he was a former Rockies manager. I'll add some of him to my pile that will be headed your way.